


Free

by r_lee



Category: Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Munro dreams of freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anythingbutblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutblue/gifts).



> A treat fic for you.

_Magua._ She would like to spit the word off the edge of her lips, erase it from the world like a smudge of dirt washed away by the rain. In this moment all she knows is that she will not be his wife and she will not see Cora burn. The reality of either taking place is like a blunt cudgel to her thoughts and while she knows there is little she can do, she also knows there is _much_ she can do. It may be someone's will that Magua becomes her husband, but it is not _her_ will. If he has her body then he has her body, but she makes no pact with anyone, human or deity, to give either her heart or her mind. The Munro family is strong and they can and will endure, but they are also free and independent and nobody takes that away. Nobody.

 _Take me,_ Duncan insists and from very far away, as if she's at the far end of a tunnel, Alice hears her sister's voice. _What are they doing to Duncan? Where's Alice?_ and then, a moment later: _Alice!_

Like a sack of wheat she's tied and like a sack of wheat she falls, heavy and uncooperative, dragged for a time before she finds herself once again on her feet and up they climb, up and up, and the only thing she knows is a confused and fleeting series of images: rock beneath her feet. Rope binding her wrists, finally cut so she might help herself climb. Words echoing in her thoughts: _Munro daughter with moon in her hair must be Magua's wife, so Munro's seed doesn't die._

Never.

Her eyes are open and images flit by: the trees in the distance, the sky above, the way her dress catches on the rocks as they hurry past. She sees none of these things, though, not really. There is a place deep inside where she can find peace. She's been here before and now she thinks she'll stay. Cora is here. Their father is here. Nathaniel is here. Chingachgook is here.

 _Uncas_ is here.

Uncas is here, and he is good and he is kind, and he is beautiful to look at and beautiful in spirit. He's quiet and polite and when he reaches forward to almost touch her hair there's innocence and an unsullied, unselfish loveliness in his eyes. She could leap into his heart and be safe there forever, she knows it. And so she will: the rest of the world can hurry brutally by outside but in here, she will be cherished and fed, cared for and loved, safe in the kind arms of the one she chooses. The one whose shy glances say he loves her. Yes. This, she knows, is where she needs to be.

Uncas is here. Out there she is breathless and her side aches from running and her skin is clammy. Out there, Magua leads the way, obstinate and as full of hatred as ever. She cannot heal his heart. No one's death can heal his heart. He is twisted, broken, beyond repair, and he will not have her.

She belongs to another.

Uselessly, her hands pick at her dress as if it's a treasured heirloom that warrants protection from the ground. There is little she can do but this one thing. One thing only, and when one has just one course of action one takes it. It's a lesson she's been reluctant to learn but knows it now. They come to the ledge of the cliff, to the promontory, and wait as Magua, who she will never wed in her heart, moves forward. A shout, a gunshot, and a cry fill the air and there he is: the world inside her heart meets the world outside. Uncas, filled with fury, filled with battle, filled with determination, dispatches men with a skill she could not possibly have known him to possess before now and she will go to him, she will go to his side. She must.

Her captors don't allow it but still, Uncas is here, Uncas will save her, Uncas will prevail.

But it is Magua, heart twisted with hatred, who prevails and she can't move, she can't look. Even after she finally pulls away, she can't bear to look beyond the first rip of Magua's knife into Uncas' flesh. The guards no longer try to stop her. The fight is a dance, a beautiful terrible dance between the one she loves and the one to whom she's been given and with all her heart, all of it, she wills Uncas to escape. For _his_ life, she will go to Magua. For his life, she will do anything. She will always have him with her in her heart, in her mind, and the world will sing his name for all of time.

But he dies. By Magua's sword he dies, and the world turns black now. When Uncas falls over the cliff and soars to the ground far below, her heart falls with him and she knows what has to happen. As long as he lived, there was hope. With the tiny graceful measured steps of one who used to love dance, she edges out onto the rock. With the tiny graceful measured steps of one who was until recently but a child, she moves out to the very lip of the rock. Her heart has already stopped beating; it lies dashed on the rocks below. She looks down. It's so far. So far.

The blade in Magua's hand is covered with blood. _That blood belongs to Uncas,_ she thinks, and there's a moment of absolute folly where she thinks if she had it she could give it back to Uncas, recall him from the ground far below, and restore his very life. Is there a chance, she wonders? Could he _possibly_ be alive? Her heart, still, unwavering, knows the sad answer. Magua holds his hand forward, hesitant but impatient: _come here, girl_ says the gesture. He repeats it a little more insistently. _Come here._

Alice knows where she needs to be: in the place where Uncas is alive and strong by her side. The girl who is no longer a child to anyone turns from Magua for the last time and falls and falls into the safe, strong protection of Uncas' waiting arms. _This_ is where she belongs. Here, she is free.


End file.
